chapter book Archives - Page 11 of 81

The Beach Dilemma (Emma Just Medium)
by Laura Wiltse Prior (Author) and Marta Kissi (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: The middle kid between her two brothers, whom everyone calls Big and Little, Emma is just Medium. Big thinks he’s the coolest kid on the planet now that he’s ten. He doesn’t want to play with LEGOs, or play anything with Emma anymore. And everyone thinks Little is adorable, even when he picks his nose and eats it! Sometimes Emma feels like the only one who understands her is her Japanese fighting fish, Star, whose tank is stuck in the middle of his two brothers. And as usual, Emma has to ride in the middle seat as her family heads out on a weeklong beach vacation with friends, where being just medium will only get worse! Then Emma has an idea. What if she could get out of being in the middle by taking on a new role? What if she acted BIG? Will things go as planned? Or will she have another huge dilEmma?

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Two Green Birds
by Geraldo Valério (Author / Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Francisco’s grandmother has a surprise for him. In her backyard is a guava tree, and in the tree hangs a cage containing two magnificent green birds. They are parakeets, his grandmother says. Francisco has never seen birds so green, so beautiful. He imagines them sitting on his hand, or murmuring in his ear as he scratches the backs of their heads.

Every day Francisco walks to his grandmother’s house to help her care for the birds. But no matter what food they are offered, the birds will not eat or drink or speak. Perhaps their cage is too small, thinks Francisco. But moving the birds into a bigger cage only seems to frighten them.

Then, on the sixth day, Francisco arrives at Grandma’s and hears a big commotion in the backyard. The guava tree is full of parakeets, just like the ones in the cage. All the parakeets are screaming. Inside the cage, the two birds hop and flap and seem to be calling to the parakeets outside. And that’s when Francisco knows what the green parakeets need to be happy — and what he and his grandmother have to do.

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